Day One Blogging

Well hello to everyone already out their in cyberspace. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit slow to change my ways and have still been utilising the old pen and paper method of journal writing. I’m looking forward to sharing my family’s experiences of life on a Catalan mountain.

As an introduction we moved to our ruined ‘finca’ (a small Spanish farmhouse) nearly four years ago. Ever since we’ve been curtailing our previously urban ways in a bid for a different more involved and hands-on way of life (yep so that’s dirty fingernails and hard physical graft a lot of the time). It dosn’t always (well rarely) work out as planned but we’re loving it and hope others may find our experiences of interest.
The internet has certainly helped us a great deal. Every aspect of rural living and stone cottage rebuilding is a world away from restoring Victorian terraced houses and office work. We’ve researched everything from the ideal sand/putty mix for lime render to how to raise chickens (and some yummy recipes for after their demise!) too.
And, now I’m excited about using the internet in a more proactive way. I hope others enjoy tales of our ‘good’ life which isn’t all knitted yoghurt and swede stew. We follow the ‘self sufficientish’ ideal of being realistic and working within our own budget and skills to enjoy and improve life, food and family in a little corner of Catalunya. Mostly though we just enjoy life in the countryside producing what we can when we can, and of course the eternal confusion of being foreigners in a new (for us anyway) land.

Anyway, I’m quite excited now so time to start blogging. My apologies for any ‘bloggy’ errors but its all new to me – I’ve mostly been mixing mortar and digging for the last few years. I’m looking forward to some serious typing now….